‘The most exciting novel I have ever read’ — Bertrand Russell
‘At the end of the nineteenth century, Ethel Boole [Voynich] had gone to Russia as a young girl and become involved with the revolutionaries in Saint Petersburg. She wrote a novel called The Gadfly — it told a powerful, romantic story of a young girl who sacrificed everything for revolution. Without realising it, [Voynich] had become a hero of the Russian revolution … her novel inspired millions of young revolutionaries in the 1920s to rise up and fight for the revolution, inspired by the idea of surrendering themselves to a grand historic cause. Then the same had happened in China — again, millions of young revolutionaries had carried The Gadfly in their backpacks, as they fought to create a new kind of future.’ — Adam Curtis, Can’t Get You Out of My Head; An Emotional History of the Modern World
‘Masterpiece of story telling’ — The New York Times